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No man loves a woman as much as Shravan loves his Sumo
This is all I could think of while watching Shravan's selfless love for Sumo as I watched all the episodes from 1-109 since last Sunday. Unlike other characters on TV that go through a realization that they love the woman, this one starts off loving her unconditionally. It is possible because it is unrequited love from very early on in his life.
Unrequited love is the strongest feeling in the world, it is stronger because it does not have the benefit of shared, mutual love from the start (like Pushkar and Preeti's). I should know, I just went through it with someone who looked a lot like Shravan in real life. He can be horrible to me, but I know I will be first to save him if he was in trouble. Unrequited love gets rid of your ego and makes you selfless like that when you are called upon, you don't care what giving in to this person makes you look like to the others. Shravan is at Sumo's disposal during the case for this reason, he sacrifices his own law firm for it.
So Shravan starts off loving her from when he learns what love is and when he is rejected by Sumo's silliness, he buries it very deep in him. From then on, he performs the friendship with loyalty. He does the revenge track because of the buried anger, but then reverts to friendship. He never wants to look back at the actual source of his regard that switches between hate and friendship: Love.
He will put up with anything from Sumo. How many guys that are that big will let a chit of a woman dominate him? She pushed him and his palm fell on a pin on the pillar of her house, he said nothing to her though it hurt his heart and hand. He looked at that mark later as a reminder of her - with love! She scratched him with her nail when de-engaging with him (with the engagement ring) and he just looked on, hurt, but would never rebuke her. Only said later that her ignoring him hurts a lot. He will put up with any zulm she heartlessly puts on him, not because he's weak, but because his love for her is too strong (there is a thin line between this and abuse though). She is the giver of the scratch and the healer of it with the band-aid too, that is their relationship. She is flippant like that, but Shravan is consistent throughout. He is the one taking both and he's still there with one feeling toward her, love.
Shravan said it himself, she plays with him and he puts up with it and misses her just as she wants him to - all while knowing it is manipulation. He loves her enough to let her own him, even if he thinks she does not love him back. It is because in his mind, he belongs to her and her only. You can't find a man that loyal to a woman in real life, it is so precious, so rare to love a woman without hope for that long. He was going to keep on doing that for the rest of his life.
Sumo might like pampering him from time to time, but her regard for him is one that grew over time. It is not intense like his. She loves him, yes, she wants to make his food, make him find his mother again, etc. Hers is a common woman's love, but it comes after her gratefulness to her family like she said. Whereas, for Sharavan, no one in his family is holding him back from her. He doesn't have his mother's love, so she is the primary woman in his life. He even goes to his father to tell him he cannot avoid Sumo even though to him, dad comes first. That is because he has attached himself to Sumo like an identity. He's defined by Sumo, as her childhood friend. She was the one he depended on to talk about his parents' fights because he confided in her like no one else.
That is a real man's love. He literally has no romantic history (unless CVs decide to ruin it) to be like the cool-kids the likes of Aditya want to be to prove their verility. He is a real man because he is a literal one-woman man. That takes intention and intensity, most men these days are only about notches on their belts and cannot understand that a woman is not impressed by the guy's girlfriend history, but his commitment. And no, it doesn't matter how deserving or no deserving the woman is of that love. Love to that extent just happens for a person - usually undeserving person like Sumo the Bully (as a kid). You can't help it, I should know. This kind of unrequited love says more about Shravan than Sumo. It is a solidness of character to love with that amount of faith.
The one I mentioned earlier is still in my life as a friend, I will always be a solid friend to him, even though he doesn't deserve it. I also hide it well, like Shravan. It is more about my consistency than about him that I keep the friendship. I regarded him with a devotion much like Shravan's and my friendship wall is unbreakable like Shravan's now. Nothing will ever make me admit it to him because he did not see it when he needed to see it. That's why, I will egg him on to any other girl he takes an interest in because he will never find the kind of love I could give him, but he didn't want it, so he deserves none of it. I will applaud the loudest when he's hitched. It is about being invulnerable when you are vulnerable to a person. He will never get another chance. I am not saying it is right or healthy. Actually, unrequited love certainly is not healthy. It makes you rigid in order to be invulnerable. But Shravan is being vulnerable to her again, because as he said, he has kept it all locked away in his heard and he really wants to say and do a lot to her.
That takes a lot of faith to make yourself available to the undeserving again. I for one, don't ever see myself there but admire Shravan for that leap. You see it in Shravan all the time also, he may look strong but he's very vulnerable to Sumo. Just look at how he reacted during the engagement day when she hurt him. Most guys would whine or lose their temper, but he silently took it, knowing that it was quite intentional because something was bothering Sumo.
Great, gallant character's creation by the CVs. This character is truly unique and portrayed with incredible sincerity by Namik Paul. Pat yourself on the back because you have created perfection together!
* The reason I say Suman is undeserving is because he loved her when she was unkind of him as a kid. He still loves her when she doesn't love him with as much fervor as he does. He gives a lot more to her than he takes. Just count the number of things he has done for her v. what she has done for him. She hasn't had the chance yet to do much for him. Her big contribution will be his mother, but it hasn't happened yet.
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